The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(97)

‘I shouldn’t think so. But he’ll simply love snobbin’ into it: and it’ll keep him awake. Here’s Alan! Clare, you haven’t seen where my portulaca was. Shall we take a turn?’

‘Aunt Em, you’re shameless,’ said Dinny in her ear; ‘and it’s no good.’

‘ “If at first you don’t succeed” – d’you remember every mornin’ when we were little? Wait till I get my hat, Clare.’

They passed away.

‘So your leave’s up, Alan?’ said Dinny, alone with the young man. ‘Where shall you be?’

‘Portsmouth.’

‘Is that nice?’

‘Might be worse. Dinny, I want to talk to you about Hubert. If things go wrong at the Court next time, what’s going to happen?’

All ‘bubble and squeak’ left Dinny, she sank down on a fireside cushion, and gazed up with troubled eyes.

‘I’ve been inquiring,’ said young Tasburgh; ‘they leave it two or three weeks for the Home Secretary to go into, and then, if he confirms, cart them off as soon as they can. From Southampton it would be, I expect.’

‘You don’t really think it will come to that, do you?’

He said gloomily: ‘I don’t know. Suppose a Bolivian had killed somebody, here, and gone back, we should want him rather badly, shouldn’t we, and put the screw on to get him?’

‘But it’s fantastic!’

The young man looked at her with an extremely resolute compassion.

‘We’ll hope for the best; but if it goes wrong something’s got to be done about it. I’m not going to stand for it, nor is Jean.’

‘But what could be done?’

Young Tasburgh walked round the hall looking at the doors; then, leaning above her, he said:

‘Hubert can fly, and I’ve been up every day since Chichester. Jean and I are working the thing out – in case.’

Dinny caught his hand.

‘My dear boy, that’s crazy!’

‘No crazier than thousands of things done in the war.’

‘But it would ruin your career.’

‘Blast my career! Look on and see you and Jean miserable for years, perhaps, and a man like Hubert broken rottenly like that – what d’you think?’

Dinny squeezed his hand convulsively and let it go.

‘It can’t, it shan’t come to that. Besides, how could you get Hubert? He’d be under arrest.’

‘I don’t know, but I shall know all right if and when the time comes. What’s certain is that if they once get him over there, he’ll have a damned thin chance.’

‘Have you spoken to Hubert?’

‘No. It’s all perfectly vague as yet.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t consent.’

‘Jean will see to that.’

Dinny shook her head. ‘You don’t know Hubert; he would never let you.’

Alan grinned, and she suddenly recognized that in him there was something formidably determined.

‘Does Professor Hallorsen know?’

‘No, and he won’t, unless it’s absolutely necessary. But he’s a good egg, I admit.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Yes, he’s a good egg; but an outsize.’

‘Dinny, you’re not gone on him, are you?’

‘No, my dear.’

‘Well, thank God for that! You see,’ he went on, ‘they’re not likely to treat Hubert as an ordinary criminal. That will make things easier perhaps.’

Dinny gazed at him, thrilled to her very marrow. Somehow that last remark convinced her of the reality of his purpose. ‘I’m beginning to understand Zeebrugge. But – ’

‘No buts, and buck up! That boat arrives the day after tomorrow, and then the case will be on again. I shall see you in Court, Dinny. I must go now – got my daily flight. I just thought I’d like you to know that if the worst comes to the worst, we aren’t going to take it lying down. Give my love to Lady Mont; shan’t be seeing her again. Good-bye, and bless you!’ And, kissing her hand, he was out of the hall before she could speak.

Dinny sat on beside the cedar log, very still, and strangely moved. The idea of defiance had not before occurred to her, mainly perhaps because she had never really believed that Hubert would be committed for trial. She did not really believe it now, and that made this ‘crazy’ idea the more thrilling; for it has often been noticed that the less actual a risk, the more thrilling it seems. And to the thrill was joined a warmer feeling for Alan. The fact that he had not even proposed added to the conviction that he was in dead earnest. And on that tiger-skin, which had provided very little thrill to the eighth baronet, who from an elephant had shot its owner while it was trying to avoid notice, Dinny sat, warming her body in the glow from the cedar log, and her spirit in the sense of being closer to the fires of life than she had ever yet been. Her Uncle’s old black and white spaniel dog, Quince, who in his master’s absences, which were frequent, took little interest in human beings, came slowly across the hall and, lying down four-square, put his head on his forepaws and looked up at her with eyes that showed red rims beneath them. ‘It may be all that, and it may not,’ he seemed to say. The log hissed faintly, and a grandfather clock on the far side of the hall struck three with its special slowness.